Managing Expectations

Tomorrow's race is going to be a wet one. 

 

Now that I've refreshed the hourly weather projections to the point of insanity, I've come to terms with the forecast of rain -- a 60% chance of showers starting at 7 AM (line up time) and increasing a 70% chance of light rain through the rest of the day.  The projected high? 42 degrees. 

 

Bummer.

 

Okay, actually, tomorrow's weather isn't that bad for running. You wear a hat. You wear gloves. You use Body Glide like it's going out of style.  I've run in the rain before, and it's fine. Of course, the few times that I've run in the rain were training runs so it didn't matter how long it took me to finish.  Tomorrow, I want to finish in 1:55:00.  I've come so close to a sub-2:00 race before and I want tomorrow to be the day that it finally happens.  I've trained hard, you know.  I want to prove to myself that I can do this.

 

But, I might have to be okay with not reaching my time goal tomorrow -- given the conditions.  If the roads are wet, or the rain gets all up in my grill, I will have to adjust my goal pace and plan to run a fast half on another day.

 

Then again, weather forecasts in DC are sometimes completely off. (Snowquester? More like Noquester...wocka wocka wocka!) Who knows? It might turn out to be a beautiful day.